


Gravity

by straeon



Category: Emmerdale, robron
Genre: Angst, M/M, Make up sex, adam and victoria also referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:27:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straeon/pseuds/straeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roberts returns to the scrapyard, considering shutting it down, but thinks about what this all means for his relationship with Aaron. (Set after the 08/06/2015 episode.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

It was dark when Robert decided to sneak back into the scrapyard. No one was around to hear the door of the porta cabin be slammed open under the strength of his frustrated anger. Even the dog was sound asleep – suitably useless, really.

It was a mess in there, which could be seen in the moonlight that prevented the need to turn a light on. It often was but it seemed even more careless now; abandoned even.

Robert didn’t know why he was actually there. To find clues to Adam’s whereabouts? That was unlikely to be a success, Robert knew already, though he was still going to look around to be sure. To find more ways to hurt Adam? To get back at him? To just trash the place?

Sitting down at a desk thoughtfully, tiredly, he recalled the resentment he felt as he’d done that to Katie’s grubby caravan, the petty satisfaction to smash some mug of Andy’s, to just ruin something for them that made them happy. And how it had felt to feel the warmth of those flames on his face, to watch the place burn, the perverse pleasure as the fire spread to engulf the pitiful possessions of their pitiful little life.

He could do the same to this place. Just light a match and let it burn. No one knew what he’d done then, except Katie and well…

But Aaron knew and he’d know this time as well. Even if he just trashed the place, Aaron would know it had been him. The corner of Robert’s mouth twitched – it would definitely get his attention at least.

But it wasn’t really worth the aggro, Robert decided as he sat back, spreading his legs out in front of him as if he owned the place (which he partly did). Adam wasn’t even here to see it hurt him though. He could pull the plug on the scrapyard right now, stop Adam from getting any money from it, but to destroy it completely might leave Adam with even less to come back to in the village, which wouldn’t really help Robert right now.

This place as something of Adam’s though, even just in part - he did want to destroy that right now. Anything of Adam’s, anything relating to him, to crush it till nothing remained but ashes. Everything he threatened to do to him, he should’ve when he’d had the chance to make it hurt. Not that it necessarily would have prevented this but it’d make him feel good. He knew he likely only wanted that from some petulant desire to hurt Adam in any way possible, but to see it hurt.

_I just want to protect her._ The words he’d uttered weakly earlier echoed in the empty air around him. Even now, after all these months, he was still defending himself to him, not quite knowing why still, just knowing when he saw that look of judgement on his face… Robert didn’t want to be the bad guy in this situation but, to be honest, he didn’t care if that’s how he came off, not to Adam or anyone else. But when he saw himself in Aaron’s eyes, that’s when it became real, what he was doing, who he was, all of his own making.

Was he doing this to protect Victoria or did he want to turn all that she had with Adam into ashes around them?

Robert had meant all he’d said about Adam, of course. He wasn’t good enough for Victoria, he was absolutely a pillock, a part of him definitely wanted to kill him. 

Aaron’s stupid words, his stupid fucking gorgeous face, though made him rethink it, when that was the last thing he wanted to do. Robert did what he had to, that’s how it had been since he’d been thrown out into the cold with no one but himself to depend on, when he needed to be ruthless and selfish to keep going. Stopping and thinking about whether it was ‘right’ or ‘moral’ only slowed down the road to success.

Those probing eyes looking into his, though, or regarding him resentfully and looking away or only turning in his direction for show while remaining glassy and blank to push back how he felt for him, that there was anything between the two of them. They always left him feeling bare. Under the gaze of those pale but dark, hard eyes, all that he was was who he was. He could grasp for the security of his piles of money, like he always did since he _could_ do that, but that façade was useless, they saw right through it and the expensive watch and shiny cars. What they saw was the things he’d done, the man he’d let himself become, his true, often terrible, motivations.

Sighing tiredly, Robert looked around the messy desk. It was the less messy of the two though and Robert realised this wasn’t Adam’s. It was where he’d automatically sat down, not having spent enough time here to remember instantly which was which, not having been that interested in _actual_ meetings to do with the scrapyard as much as the ability to use that excuse. But he didn’t make a move to search through Adam’s desk.

He’d probably end up searching the whole place anyway.

Carelessly, he slammed open some of the drawers and squinted into them. Nothing that interesting, paperwork, post, a bobble hat… He couldn’t help but remember him wearing it around the scrapyard, or when he was running, pushing himself and hurting himself because of Robert’s thoughtless actions.

The memory at the forefront of his mind however was just one of the many times it had been ended between them, and Aaron told him to ‘do one’ before storming off, probably genuinely wanting to be rid of him in that moment, even if it didn’t last (rarely did). 

Robert shook his head and nearly laughed at himself, nearly laughed into the messed up drawer, in the dark on his own. He came here for his sister, to get something on the waster she was with or to find her and stop her ruining her young life more than she already might have. Yet he was thinking about other times he’d spend in this place and what it was built on, which had basically been his lust for the local mechanic. 

But it had become more than that. It was a way of spending time with him, properly spending time with him, having moments and nights away with him that could nearly pass as something normal, where they could even pretend it wasn’t a seedy affair when they were wrapped up each other and the wet hotel sheets.

Not that Robert had minded thinking of it as an affair. Not at all. When he had bits of hay digging into his skin in uncomfortable places a draught blowing over his naked body and thought he might have heard the scratching of a rat in the nearest corner to where they were frantically fucking, what kept him as hard for Aaron as he so often was was that all of that only reminded him how wrong this was. Not just wrong – the low voiced phone calls, the cheeky smiles in the bar and meeting somewhere so deserted were enough to remind him it was wrong. Here it was just pure animalistic sex, where all they sought was to satisfy their deepest cravings, where they pushed each other to go further, deeper, harder than ever before, where they moaned with all the pleasure that filled their bodies while everything else became meaningless except for the basic carnal need to fuck, to please themselves and to please each other. Where there was no reminder to be anything but animals, it had been obscene even; Robert had done things he’d never done with any man before, that he’d only imagined and seen on small screens in a dark office (with private browsing, unlike some) with his hand wrapped around his long, hard cock, with the aching need for a greasy muscled, testosteroned, big cocked man’s wet mouth or tight and ready ass around it.

_Fuck_. How did Robert let it become more than that? Without even realising that it was becoming more than that. Not until he was smacked in the face with it in another dark, seedy meeting place, when a love declaration crashed down that wall between feelings and something that was meant to be just physical. Yet it hadn’t been just physical for a while. Somehow, he’d sealed everything off that was ‘Aaron’ in the same corner of his mind that was for that, one of the parts of him he showed to no one who could use it against him. Being with Aaron was just to satisfy that, the need to explore a part of him he so often denied - but what had been about sex and sexuality didn’t somehow _become_ about feelings and warmth and love because it had always been about that in some way.

And then he let it slip away. More than once.

_I just wanted to see ya._ Words that echoed around this claustrophobic and empty feeling place, he would’ve longed to hear again from Aaron’s lips here. Of course, he freed himself from Robert’s toxic web. Maybe he was lucky for that because as much as Robert had wanted the same, to run away with him from what he’d created for them here, he could never free himself from it. He could never escape himself.

While everybody else did.

Slamming those drawers shut with a loud finality (for a moment, he stopped and listened to check the dog hadn’t stirred), he sat back and resented these thoughts in his mind, the messy uncontrollable stream. Compartments that were carefully sealed off from each other showing cracks in the foundation. That’s what that local mechanic, that he’d just wanted to fuck, did to him; he made him rethink everything that he was and that way of being that he’d developed over years. It was the most efficient really – he could just do what needed to be done and think about it later, feel any remorse if he had to, but after it was done. He didn’t have to stop to question what it meant, what that made him, who he was, any labels that could be put to him. Fucking men was something he did sometimes and that didn’t make him gay or bisexual and killing a young woman he’d once loved was something he did once and that didn’t make him a killer.

He stood up, took a step away from there with a scoff and shook his head again. He was only stopping to think because he shouldn’t have stopped at the pub before coming here (though it made his cover story to Chrissie more believable that he was meeting Andy for a pint) and he shouldn’t self-indulge on thoughts of the past alone in the dark.

Yet he was, even as he leaned back on the desk, firmly putting it behind him, like he’d firmly dug his palms into the sharp edge of the surface with Aaron’s palms rubbing over the surface of his skin under his messed up shirt, before moving down to his hips then back around Robert’s cock that he held in his wet mouth. Again, he could nearly hear that wish of ‘happy birthday’ against his ear and the warm breath of air before he leant onto his knees in front of him. And he wished that he could feel the soft hairs of the thicker beard he’d had then against his stomach again as he left teasing kisses over every soft curve and every freckle and moved so slowly lower until he’d gasped to feel hair on hair and his soft fingers over his own aching hardness. He wished he could see those unguarded blue eyes as clearly in front of him, as they’d seen through his uncertainty and, without Robert saying a word, Aaron promised that Adam wouldn’t be back soon, that it was just the two of them alone, before he took him into his mouth without taking his eyes from his. The lock between their eyes didn’t break until Robert threw his head back and moaned, then laughed as loudly, at the tongue that he ran over his tip, the intense sucking and the moan that vibrated from the back of Aaron’s neck and his hold on his cock.

Robert couldn’t stop himself thinking of shoving Aaron down onto the desk, of how the only time he’d seen it messier than it was now was when he made him come over it.

How Aaron had once pulled him desperately into the dark cabin from the darker outside, already undressed as he started ripping Robert’s clothes off too before he pushed him down onto the chair behind his desk, lowered himself onto him and fucked himself while he straddled Robert’s lap. If Robert hadn’t needed to get back home, Aaron would’ve gladly taken it for the whole night, with his firm thighs wrapped around Robert like his arms around his head that held him as close against him as possible, their wet mouths continually seeking the other’s as they rocked together, perfectly matched, before he came hotly over Robert’s front. He smiled to think of Aaron cleaning up after them while Robert had avoided washing Aaron away from him fully till the latest possible hour before he wouldn’t have been able to hide the scent of sex with another man from his wife.

Robert’s hands were inches away from his own belt and fly again, craving to satisfy the hardening in his pants, but he couldn’t let himself... Not in this place now. 

He felt like he was being mocked by the pieces of flimsy material stuck together in the middle of literal junk. What he’d put money into, helped create, which probably wouldn’t exist without him, which was such a reminder of how much closer he’d wanted to get to Aaron… Now it was a reminder of how far apart they were and his threat to shut it down would surely be the final nail of the coffin of their relationship.

But was that really Robert’s decision? Robert had given Aaron chances to try to rekindle what they had, made gestures and shown he didn’t at all want it to be over between them. He threw them back in his face, literally, and maybe he was right to do so. Today, however, he showed disdain for him, laughed at him and turned his back on him, here, where he knew he could shut it down and with that, end what they’d had entirely, and worst of all, he chose Adam over him. It put in clear perspective what Robert meant to Aaron, how little he cared now about Robert, even to help him protect his sister.

Adam had brought it on himself - that Robert had no doubt about, and had already decided he’d do anything to hurt him and keep him away from Victoria. What was more complicated was Aaron’s part in the scrapyard. And Aaron had made that choice for him today.

Furiously, Robert ruffled through the papers on Adam’s desk. Not caring for the risk, he switched on the desk lamp to make sure the papers were of no use to him - it was mostly his place after all, and soon would be nothing. It was crap, crap, crap. He punctuated that by slamming them down, as messily as possible, before slamming open the drawers, not bothering to shut them after. There was a load of more crap, except in the last drawer. Feeling a small hint of triumph, Robert grabbed Adam’s mobile phone from the drawer and pocketed it.

Standing up to go, he made sure there was nowhere else he’d left unchecked, before giving the place a final deprecatory look. But as the cold night wind hit his face, he even moreso felt the warmth of his anger and his passion, so that using this to find Adam and Victoria wasn’t what was on his mind at all.

 

“What do ya want now?!” Aaron demanded as Robert crashed past him before he’d got a chance to open the door properly. “I’m not telling you any more than I did earlier so-”

“Yes, you are,” Robert said, hard voiced but with as calm an exterior as he could manage, which was to still stand near to Aaron near the staircase, not still on his feet and working his hands into fists then stretching his fingers and making fists again. “It’s either that or the scrapyard closes. Now. And that’s it.”

“You can’t do that,” was Aaron’s retort without skipping a beat.

“Yeah, I can,” Robert said with a bitter laugh. “And I don’t see why I shouldn’t after… everything.”

“After you don’t get what you want, so you want to throw your toys out the pram,” Aaron said with the same disdainful, annoyingly amused tone as he’d used earlier. “I’m sure Vic’ll be racing back to her loving brother’s arms.”

“This isn’t about h- I mean, it is about her but _this_ isn’t,” Robert argued.

“This isn’t about us,” Aaron said, shaking his head.

“Except it is, isn’t it?” Robert said, stepping closer and lowering his voice. “That place was about us, that’s why I invested, that’s why I gave you and that waste of space excuse for a friend of yours a job and a business, yeah?” Aaron scoffed at how he tried to make it sound so charitable but didn’t say anything. “If we’re done, and you’ve made it perfectly clear it is, then so is it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Aaron nearly shouted, shoving Robert back out of his personal space with a rough hand on the centre of his chest. And Robert hated how any kind of touch from him could still excite him. “So, I either get back with you, or you close the scrapyard? That’s what you’re saying to me? Do you know how sick-”

“What? No,” Robert shook his head and rubbed his forehead. “That’s not what I’m saying, I just-”

“You want to hurt Adam and you want to hurt me for not getting what you want, ‘cause I didn’t take your side,” Aaron said, rolling his eyes. “This is just childish and you should get out. Don’t even – don’t talk to me till you can make some sense or act remotely like a normal human being. Which is never, so just don’t talk to me.”

“Aaron,” Robert hesitated between his ex-lover and the door.

“Don’t even look at me, right?” Aaron said, echoing words Robert had once said to him. Granted, Robert could still understand how Aaron would hate him.

“No,” Robert shook his head, clenching his jaw as he stood his ground. “ _You_ made this about us, when you took his side.”

“He’s my best mate,” Aaron sad, as if it was obvious, which it should be.

“So you’d just do anything for him? Come on.”

“He wants to be with the person he loves,” Aaron said. “I’m not gonna let you control them, if that’s what you mean, no.”

“I’m not!”

“You are and you come in here trying to control me too,” Aaron insisted, emphasizing with a finger stabbed into his chest. “It’s disgusting and you know from today you can’t wrap people around your finger.”

“I just want her to think about what she’s doing. I- I don’t know why you don’t understand that?” Robert asked.

Aaron shook his head with an exasperated outtake of breath. “It’s her life. They’re her choices. Do you think it helps her to have everyone against her, them, to drive them away? If I’m on their side, it’s because what you do is poison people and yeah, I’d rather them be away from that.”

“Fine, whatever,” Robert said, shaking his head. “So this _is_ about me.”

“God, you’re self-centered,” Aaron said, shaking his head and half turning away from Robert with a laugh.

“ _You_ said-”

“It’s only about you because you pushed them into this situation, Robert,” Aaron told him. “Why won’t you just give it up?!”

“Because I don’t want to give up on this,” Robert said in nearly a whisper, arching his neck to look Aaron in the face.

“This isn’t about us,” Aaron repeated, shaking his head.

“ _This_ is,” Robert said, turning Aaron’s face to him, immediately getting his hand pushed away by Aaron.

“You just have no idea,” Aaron said. “What you do to people. That you don’t even understand why it’s wrong – or you don’t care, as long as you get what you want.”

“You didn’t care it was wrong when we started though, did you?” Robert asked, with a crooked smile despite himself.

That was the last straw for Aaron’s temper and he shoved Robert back against the wall, not that hard but it took Robert by surprise and Aaron regretted losing control when he was inches from his face and had his clothes tight in his fists.

“Don’t throw that back in my face,” Aaron said more coolly. “You were the one that was wrong, you were the one with the fiancée.”

“Because I’m always in the wrong,” Robert said with a fed up shake of his head. “This is useless, isn’t it?”

“What?” Aaron asked, a hint of confusion in his furrowed facial expression.

“You’ve already given up on me,” Robert said as he pushed Aaron away from him and stood up properly.

“You gave up on yourself,” Aaron said.

“So,” Robert turned away from Aaron to collect himself, before turning back to him more calmly. “You gonna tell me where they went?”

Aaron laughed aloud and crossed his arms over his chest. “Really? You’re even still trying that?”

“Yeah, I am, until you tell me,” Robert answered.

“And then I’m in trouble, right?” Aaron said mockingly, before realising how it sounded and how Robert swallowed uncomfortably was his eyes watched Aaron’s face, and neck and moved lower as he clenched his jaw again. Though Aaron wondered if he’d really unclenched his jaw since he’d arrived, not being able to stop himself looking over his smooth skin, the vein on his neck and how affected he was by him, remembering how the muscles of his throat worked as he gasped and moaned for breath when he came under Aaron’s sweat drenched body.

“Not - not if you tell me,” Robert stuttered.

Aaron cocked his head smugly, leaning his slender body, which Robert could still picture in all its toned glory, back against the wall.

“Then,” Robert hesitated for a moment, shuffling his feet for a moment before reminding himself to stay collected and he collectedly moved to stand directly in front of Aaron.

“Then what?” Aaron asked with a challenge in his voice.

“Then you’re in trouble, aren’t ya?” Robert whispered as he placed his hands on the wall around him and leaned against him. Before either could think about it, they fell onto each other, their arms as tangled as their mixed emotions for each other were, fighting to grab and hold each other, lips taking each other’s hungrily, Robert pushing his tongue against Aaron’s, seeking an invitation back into his wet, warm mouth. 

“Yes, I am,” Aaron whispered as Robert held his face in his hands, stroking his thumbs across his stubble gladly and letting a breath out, to get to satisfy his earlier lust from that stubble, as he smiled against Aaron and moved back to kiss him.

But instead he was shoved back against the opposite wall before Aaron fell back onto him forcefully, shoving Robert’s hands away to pull him closer and press his body against his, pushing his crotch on his as Robert’s hands grabbed his pull to pull him closer. They pushed and shoved each other, grabbed roughly while only their lips were soft, being brought back to each other with all the strength of the force of gravity, the same that brought their lives back together no matter how much they fought it or how much they pretended to themselves they wanted to be free of this.

“Upstairs,” Aaron breathed roughly onto Robert’s mouth, before he could say something to the same affect. A smile spread over Robert’s face and for a second Aaron touched those lines around his mouth that he so loved to see on his face caused by _him_.

He led the way upstairs, not being able to hide the smile on his face at Robert’s clear excitement as he instantly pulled him closer again, wrapping his arms around his waist as soon as the door shut behind them. Aaron pushed him back against the wall, softer than he had before, and wrapped his arms around him before kissing him hard again, not allowing Robert to get control of him, to control their relationship. This was on _his_ terms - Aaron’s.

He couldn’t fight it - no matter what, he wanted him, wanted this. Ripping off Robert’s frustratingly tight shirt, he threw his clothes aside, feeling over his toned torso with nearly a gasp to have him under his hands again. Pulling his own shirt off over his head, he gave a low moan as Robert pushed Aaron’s trousers down to press his hands over his ass as Aaron pulled him back to his hungry mouth. Robert dug his fingers in, bringing a louder groan from Aaron against his mouth, making Robert’s already hard cock twitch, nearly involuntarily grinding against Aaron as he pulled his legs around him. Aaron leant back on his bed while pulling Robert back down with him. 

“You want it?” Robert asked teasingly as he pushed Aaron back on the bed with his hands above his head and getting fully unclothed as he moved a hand down Aaron’s chest, treasuring every inch of him he touched, before holding and pumping his thick cock while he kissed him, feeling the affect he had on Aaron’s breathing and slightly trembling lip.

Without an answer, Aaron lowered his legs, got up and pushed Robert back.

“What I want,” Aaron said carefully in a low voice. “Is you on your knees in front of me.”

Robert smiled as he obliged and continued to oblige, to suck harder, to take more of him when he was told to, before Aaron pulled him back by his hair and kissed him, having learned from being with Robert the pleasure of tasting himself on another man’s lips, in another man’s mouth, of licking it all and sharing that taste.

Leading Robert back up, he turned around in front of him and gestured for him to prepare him, which he did as meticulously, as teasingly slow and as hard and vigorously by turn, with his long, precise fingers. Those movements slowed or quickened as Aaron wanted and he knew he could’ve fucked Robert easily, in nearly any way that he wanted, and Robert probably would have loved it, but knowing that he could was enough. He didn’t have to prove it when what he wanted, perhaps needed, was to satisfy the aching need for him back inside of him, that he’d felt with more intensity since he’d seem him today.

With Aaron’s hands flat on the bed as he leant forward, Robert guided himself into him, bringing a groan from Aaron as his forehead rested on the back of his hand for a moment, as he adjusted to the sensation again, groaning as Robert started fucking him slowly. He pushed back, standing straighter with Robert’s fist around his thick cock and dirty whispers in his ear. As their momentum quickened, they readjusted to each other, getting their rhythm back, with that welcome feeling of how perfect their bodies were together, how they pushed each other, just like in every other parts of their relationship but here they pushed each other further to give the other more pleasure, to feel his back arch when he gave him exactly what he wanted that he didn’t even always know he wanted.

Like how Aaron shoved Robert back onto the bed and rode him, hands underneath his slim body to move himself on Robert’s length faster, bringing himself closer as Robert dug his fingers into his hips and fucked up into him. They both breathed heavily, felt beads of sweat drip from their hot skin, groaned louder than they usually dared let themselves as they forgot about control when they got closer to the edge, only knowing how they’d missed the other, how they’d missed what they were when they were together like this, just them, which was perfect. Aaron leant forward as he toed the edge, breathing against Robert’s sweaty, heaving chest, steadying himself with a hand on his chest as Robert rhythmically pumped and fucked him as he finally came, riding it out with groans that matched the intensity.

Then coming back down with Robert’s hands caressing him, his firm thighs and buttocks, his messy torso as he still fucked him, stroking along his back as he leant forward against him again, exhaling happily with the passing ecstasy before he brought Robert to climax, kissing and biting his arching throat then his open pink lips as he knew Robert liked when he came.

Slowly, they separated, with breathing returning to normal and the haze in the smallish room beginning to dissipate as Aaron lay back and pulled a sheet half-heartedly over his spent, damp body and Robert disposed of the used condom.

“So…” Robert trailed off as he lay back next to Aaron, sighing contentedly and not bothering with the covers.

“What?” Aaron asked though. “Gonna pump me for more information now?”

“I think you know that’s now what I want to p-“

“Don’t even say it,” Aaron interrupted, not being able to stop himself giving a short laugh and smiling away from Robert as he felt his gaze fixed on him.

“So what now?” Robert finally asked, interrupting Aaron as he was trying to figure out when it was they last laughed together.

“What d’ya mean?” Aaron asked with an unbothered shrug, not turning to look at Robert’s anticipating face.

“C’mon,” Robert whispered lowly as he raised himself on his arm to look down at Aaron. “I don’t like not knowing where we stand anymore.”

“Well – no strings, right?” Aaron asked, with mocking furrowed brows.

“Be serious, Aaron.”

“Isn’t that what you once wanted?” Aaron asked, looking down at his hands awkwardly.

“Yeah. Once,” Robert said simply.

“What if that’s what I want now?” Aaron asked.

“It’s not though,” Robert insisted, annoyance starting to creep into his voice.

“Maybe it is,” Aaron shrugged again, giving Robert a challenge look. “What then?”

“I-” Robert hesitated for a moment.

“Exactly,” Aaron whispered, turning away from him again.

“What?”

“What you want is everything on your terms,” Aaron said.

“That’s not-”

“What if I called the shots?” Aaron said, sitting up and leaning back on the headstand. “What if I had the power to end this or start it again whenever I wanted, to decide whether it’s a one off or no strings sex or an affair or more…?”

Robert gave him a searching look, unsure what to say to him now.

“I want you,” Aaron said matter of factly. “Obviously. But I don’t want all of that. Not a relationship where I have to be … under that control.”

“Then it won’t be like that,” Robert insisted, sitting up straight to look Aaron in the eye.

“No,” Aaron shook his head sadly. “As long as you’re in this situation, when you’re married and closeted… You’re always going to be calling the shots, worrying about your marriage first, about not being _outed_.”

“Come on,” Robert said as he leant close against him and lowered his voice. “You know we can’t stay away from each other. We always… come back to each other.”

“Maybe,” Aaron said with a shrug. “But right now, can you just not try and control everything?”

“Fine,” Robert said, putting his hands up in front of him then giving Aaron a suggestive smile. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to leave,” Aaron said, looking away as Robert’s face fell.

“Aaron-”

“This was … y’know,” Aaron said – it was amazing and mind-blowing, as they both knew it always was. “But it’s all I want right now.”

“Fine,” Robert said, without spite but accepting it while still offended as he stepped off the bed.

“But I know that,” Robert started, taking a breath as he thought over his words. “Whatever I do – with Adam or the scrapyard, I don’t need that to keep this… pull that we have. That’s _always_ going to be there.”

Aaron didn’t say anything or argue over that again but he didn’t know that he could argue with that anyway.

He watched Robert leave, hating that a part of him still wanted him to stay, still wanted what they had before, where he would take scraps while hating and punishing himself, but glad that he could fight that now. Lying back down, he felt like a traitor to his best friend as well, but then, if anyone should know what it was like to feel something like this for someone, that felt so natural, it should be him, not caring what people thought to marry who he loved. 

What he did know though was that Robert wasn’t always in the wrong – _this_ was right. They both felt that, though neither wanted to utter those words, of how right it was, just the two of them, together. And they might always be brought back together no matter how Aaron fought it but they weren’t going to _be_ together until Robert really knew how right it was. Until he was ready to accept it fully. 

As he went to wash Robert away from him, Aaron knew he wasn’t going to return to what he and Robert had had - but he also knew that that didn’t mean he was giving up on him.


End file.
